Drug Makers Push for Indemnity for Fast-Tracked Ebola Vaccines

November 04, 2014|284,419views

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), millions of doses of Ebola vaccine should be ready and available next year. Efficacy trials for two different Ebola vaccines are slated to begin in December. As reported by The Verge:1

"The WHO says that there are no plans to begin a mass vaccination program until at least June 2015, and then only if the growth of the epidemic justifies it."

The vaccine industry has a number of hurdles to conquer before they will stand to make a fortune from an Ebola vaccine however.

For starters, vaccine manufacturers are demanding indemnity against lawsuits that may arise from the use of a fast-tracked Ebola vaccine,2 similar to the indemnity claimed by the United Nations (UN), whose peacekeepers stand accused of causing the cholera outbreak in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the small country.

An estimated 700,000 Haitians have contracted cholera and 8,500 have died from it since the beginning of the outbreak. While the source of the outbreak could not be conclusively determined, a group of Haitians filed a lawsuit against the UN in 2013.

A lawyer for the US Justice Department recently called for the case to be dismissed, saying the UN is "absolutely immune" to claims of wrongdoing.3 This is the kind of "immunity" vaccine makers want as well, but indemnity might not be quite as easy to get as initially thought in this case.

Can You Trust Government Agencies and Health Experts to Prevent a Deadly Pandemic?

The federal government may also expect some resistance to a mass vaccination program against Ebola.

Considering how the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has bungled the handling deadly pathogens in the past, and has so far clumsily tripped over every Ebola hurdle placed in its path.

We probably have more to fear from the federal government than the viruses themselves. Hence when the federal government arrives at your door saying "we are here to help," it's understandable why some may want to run in the other direction...

We've also seen public health "experts" act in ways that really raise questions about their ability to give sound advice in a pandemic situation. NBC News' chief medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman, for example, was exposed to Ebola while on assignment in Liberia.

She and other members of her news team were supposed to stay in quarantine for 21 days, but decided to break their quarantine to get some take-out... Writing for KevinMD.com, Barbara Ficarra notes:4

"Her actions for violating the quarantine are unacceptable and very disconcerting. As a medical communicator, her role is to provide accurate, credible and trustworthy health information to the public, and to demonstrate good, sound judgment...

Dr. Snyderman basically showed the world that it's OK to dodge the rules at your own discretion. She had no regard for her role as a medical communicator...

As a health professional, Dr. Snyderman may be confident that she posed no risk to the public, but as a medical communicator, she demonstrated disregard to any rules and made them her own..."

Unlike Dr. Snyderman and her news team, upon return from work in Sierra Leone, epidemiologist nurse Kaci Hickox was placed under a 21-day long mandatory quarantine.5 She recently spoke to CNN, criticizing the decision to detain her, even though she's tested negative for Ebola twice, and is asymptomatic.

As noted by the White House administration, state efforts to enforce mandatory quarantine of health care workers returning from Africa might have the unfortunate result of discouraging them from volunteering their services.

Shortly after her media appearance, Hickox was released.6 While one could argue that quarantine is a good idea to control the spread of infection, imprisoning someone who is asymptomatic is still quite different from honoring a voluntary 21-day home quarantine as a safety precaution.

Dr. Snyderman broke government protocol for a sandwich. At the same time, she advocates mandatory vaccination, claiming unvaccinated people are endangering others...

Nurse to Challenge Fear-Based Policy

How are we measuring threats of disease against the rights of individuals? It appears our rights are gone when the threats appear as minor as possible, while an incompetent government and fear mongering media led by big pharma mislead and conquer.

My guess is that Hickox was released because they feared facing a court challenge that might set a precedent conflicting with the existing Supreme Court rulings about forced vaccinations and forced sterilization. If so, it was "too little, too late," as Kaci Hickox is still going ahead with a lawsuit. As reported by Reuters7 on October 28:

"Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer, said Kaci Hickox's isolation upon her return from West Africa raised 'serious constitutional and civil liberties issues,' given that she shows no Ebola symptoms and has not tested positive for the disease.

'We're not going to dispute that the government has, under certain circumstances, the right to issue a quarantine,' said Siegel... 'The policy is overly broad when applied to her.'

The lawsuit would be the first to challenge the 21-day mandatory quarantine imposed by New Jersey for anyone arriving with a high risk of having contracted Ebola from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea... The case could also affect similar policies announced by other states including New York and Illinois.

The lawsuit will argue that Hickox's constitutional right to due process was violated when she was forced into isolation... State officials implemented a blanket policy without identifying a rational basis for confining asymptomatic individuals like Hickox, he said. 'The case law makes clear that the policy should be driven by medical fact, not fear,' he said."

Vast Majority of American Ebola Patients Have Recovered

Vaccine makers are shielded against lawsuits if a vaccine is either added to the vaccination schedule or classified as a pandemic vaccine. But there may not be enough Ebola victims to justify pandemic classification in the US.

As reported by Forbes8 on October 21, 80 percent of then-diagnosed Ebola patients in the US have in fact survived—and most of those without a vaccine or other Ebola-specific medication. So far, only one American patient, Thomas Duncan, who was the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the US, has died from the disease.

Amber Vinson, a nurse who initially tested positive for the virus, has since been confirmed virus-free and has been moved out of isolation.9 Another unnamed American Ebola patient who had been working with WHO in Sierra Leone was discharged from Emory University Hospital on September 19—10 days after being admitted and treated for Ebola.

Missionary Nancy Writebol, who contracted the disease while doing aid work in Liberia, was discharged Emory University Hospital on August 19 after being treated for two weeks. Dr. Kent Brantly, another aid worker, was also discharged after nearly three weeks of treatment.

Brantly and Writebol both received the experimental and as-of-yet unapproved drug Zmapp. Dr. Rick Sacra, diagnosed with Ebola on September 3, received a blood transfusion from Dr. Brantly, and was also found to be virus-free on September 25.

On October 23, Dr. Spencer Craig, who had treated Ebola patients in Guinea, tested positive for the virus in New York City, and is currently in isolation at Bellevue Hospital Center.10 He's described as being "in good shape." The next day, October 24, Dallas nurse Nina Pham who'd been diagnosed with Ebola on October 12, was announced virus-free, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted the disease while on assignment in West Africa, was also released from the hospital on October 22 after spending just over two weeks in isolation.11 He too received a blood transfusion from Ebola survivor Dr. Brantly.

What Are the Chances an Ebola Vaccine Will Work as Expected?

Recent developments also raise questions about the feasibility of successfully eradicating Ebola with a vaccine. It's important to understand that vaccine-acquired immunity is temporary, and only protects against the particular strain of the virus included in the vaccine.

New Zealand, for example, is currently battling a "rogue" flu strain that is affecting even those who have received their annual flu shot,12 as the circulating strain was not included in this season's vaccine. In another example, an 18-year old San Diego student recently died from a strain of meningitis that was not covered by the vaccine approved for use in the US. As noted by Fox5 News:13

"A vaccine is available to prevent certain strains of meningococcal disease and is routinely recommended for children and adolescents 11 to 18 years of age, including a booster for those entering college if they received their last dose prior to age 15... According to Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the current vaccine used in the United States blocks some, but not all strains of meningococcal bacteria – including serogroups A, C, Y and W-135. Vaccines used in Europe, Canada and Australia defend against serogroup B."

Pandemic Flu Vaccine Made People Sicker

Moreover, a number of studies have now suggested that vaccination may actually increase the future risk of infection. Case in point: the 2008-2009 flu vaccine actually made people more prone to pandemic swine flu. As noted in the Canadian press two years ago:14

"Canadian researchers noticed in the early weeks of the pandemic that people who got a flu shot for the 2008-2009 winter seemed to be more likely to get infected with the pandemic virus than people who hadn't received a flu shot. Five studies done in several provinces showed the same puzzling and unsettling results... a new study suggests the findings may indeed have been real."

The study in question was led by Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an influenza expert at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver, and the findings were presented at the the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in 2012. Thirty-two ferrets were divided into two groups: one group receiving the 2008 flu vaccine and the other a placebo. All the ferrets were then infected with the pandemic H1N1 virus. End result?

The vaccinated ferrets became significantly sicker than the unvaccinated animals, which is the exact converse of what vaccines are supposed to do. At the time, Dr. Skowronski noted that: "The findings... are consistent with the increased risk that we saw in the human studies." It's still unclear what caused this effect, but two theories suggested at the time were described as follows:

The "original antigenic sin" hypothesis: if the virus in the vaccine is close but not an exact match to the pandemic virus in circulation, it might actually facilitate infection, as the antibodies generated are not able to adequately neutralize the virus.

The "infection block hypothesis" relates to vaccine-acquired versus naturally-acquired immunity. When you recover from a bout of the flu, it's possible that your body creates antibodies capable of defending against other similar strains of the virus—at least for some time. The flu vaccine, on the other hand, only offers protection against the strains included in the vaccine. The theory here is that those who received a flu shot in 2009 (and didn't get sick with the flu) were therefore more susceptible to the pandemic virus the following year.

Indeed, when blood samples from healthy, unvaccinated children and children who had received an annual flu shot were compared, the unvaccinated group was found to have naturally built up more antibodies across a wider variety of influenza strains compared to the latter vaccinated group. Needless to say, this gives those who are unvaccinated a clear advantage when a really nasty viral flu comes along...

Selenium Deficiency Could Potentially Play an Important Role in Ebola Lethality

Here's yet another factor that could play an important role in the Ebola outbreak: selenium deficiency. The documented relationship between low selenium status and impaired immunity in relation to Ebola goes back to 1995. Intriguing evidence suggests that the lethal hemorrhaging associated with the Ebola virus may be influenced by a lack of selenium...

According to Dr. Gary Gordan, adults need at least 400 micrograms (mcg) of selenium per day, but if the virus is making seleno-proteins—which Ebola is thought to do—you may need several times that amount. The documentation I'm referring to was published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine in 1995,15 and reads in part:

"The expression of this hypothetical protein could impose an unprecedented selenium demand upon the host, potentially leading to severe lipid peroxidation and cell membrane destruction. This could also contribute to the characteristic hemorrhaging caused by intravascular blood clotting, due to the thrombotic effect of selenium (Se) deficiency. The possibility that this gene might contribute to the extreme pathogenicity of the Zaire strain of Ebola virus by this mechanism is also consistent with the observation that this potential selenoprotein gene is not present in the Ebola Reston strain, which was not pathogenic in humans...

It is very well documented that selenium plays a significant role in the regulation of blood clotting via its effects on the thromboxane/prostacyclin ratio. Selenium has an anti-clotting effect, whereas selenium deficiency has a pro-clotting or thrombotic effect. Selenium deficiency has been associated with thrombosis and even hemorrhaging, which has been documented in a number of animals with severe selenium deficiency... but is almost never seen in humans, probably because such an extreme selenium deficiency is rarely attained due to the diversity of human diets.

Thus, the possibility that a rapid depletion of selenium due to the formation of viral selenoproteins could be a factor contributing to the severity of the hemorrhagic symptoms is mechanistically very feasible. Our analysis suggests that severe Ebola infections could produce an artificial and extreme Se depletion, resulting in extensive cellular damage due to lipid peroxidation, combined with enhanced thrombosis.

This could also contribute to the associated immune deficiency that has been observed in Ebola infections.

To our knowledge, indicators of Se status and lipid peroxidation have never been examined in Ebola patients. However, selenium has apparently been used with great success by the Chinese in the palliative treatment of an infectious hemorrhagic fever. Although this did not involve Ebola virus, there are a number of different hemorrhagic fever viruses, and they may share common mechanisms. This example provides yet another reason to expect that pharmacological doses of selenium may also have some benefit in Ebola infections." [Emphasis mine]

Fast-Tracked Vaccines Are Typically Fraught with Safety Hazards

As I've discussed many times previously, there are tremendous hazards inherent with fast-tracking pandemic vaccines. By their very definition, fast-tracked vaccines are those that have received very little safety testing prior to being used, and in the US, regulations place ALL the risk on the public receiving the vaccine, allowing the vaccine makers a free pass if and when something goes terribly awry—as it did with the pandemic H1N1 swine flu vaccine.

Not only did the prior year's flu vaccine (which was not fast-tracked) increase your odds of developing more severe H1N1 infection, the fast-tracked pandemic H1N1 vaccine also turned out to have very grave side effects, including a 660-900 percent increased risk for narcolepsy, which devastated the lives of thousands around the world. When you receive a fast-tracked vaccine, you take risks that you likely will never be compensated for, should something go wrong.

The PREP Act removes your right to a trial jury unless you can provide clear evidence of willful misconduct that resulted in death or serious physical injury. But first you must apply for and be granted permission to sue by the DHHS Secretary. The most problematic aspect of the PREP Act is that it removes all financial incentive to make a safe product. In fact, vaccine makers now have a negative incentive to test it for safety, because if they are aware of problems, then they could potentially be held liable for willful misconduct.

As long as they can prove they "didn't know" of any problem, they will not be liable for damages, and this fact undoubtedly makes fast-tracked pandemic vaccines very attractive in their eyes. There's lots of money to be made, and zero risk on their behalf. It even saves them money on research as the "safety studies" are basically done by tallying up the damage well after the fact... In the meantime, it's in their best interest to know as little as possible about the adverse reactions the vaccine might cause.

For the most part, most all of the conventional media portrays the entire vaccine process as something heroic and vital to the health of our culture, and they will be reluctant to ever promote any news that contradicts this belief. But as recent history shows, the GREATEST danger could actually be the CDC and other bioterror labs.

I believe we need to consider the financial motives behind the promotion of pandemics and the vaccines that go along with them. It is vital for you to carefully research ALL sides of the vaccine issue and not merely trust federal public health authorities, most physicians, and the media, as they are largely influenced by massive conflict of interest and collusion. Seek other independent and objective views like those at NVIC before you make any important decisions about deciding to vaccinate.

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